POP IT

The pop-it was everywhere as a mass-market craze - a tactile anti-stress toy that every child owned. A leading shopping centre decided to bring that craze inside its own walls.

The client came to us with a concept brief: how to bring the pop-it to architectural scale so that it worked with the centre's footfall.

A piece that needs no explanation

A pop-it at architectural scale - 2.5 by 4 metres, silicone half-spheres, the seven colours of the rainbow. The spectrum is visible from the far end of the atrium and pulls people in from a distance.

A child walks up and presses - the piece works without instructions. The half-spheres are sized for a child's hand and an adult's alike, which is why the parent stays beside the child. The volume becomes something you step into: the family moves inside and stays there.

Soft outside, rigid inside

The installation held two months of continuous load in a high-footfall atrium. On the outside, individually moulded silicone half-spheres with food-grade safety certification. On the inside, an anti-vandal steel structure sized for years of daily use.

The silicone joints hold the piece's geometry under load. POP IT is built for seasonal hire: it travels between sites, with storage and logistics built into the structure itself.